Mock student slave auction rocks private Westchester school

By Ellen Moynihan and Ben Chapman

New York Daily News|

Mar 08, 2019 | 1:55 PM

A white teacher at The Village Lutheran Church, Chapel School allegedly held a mock slave auction with her black students as part of a fifth-grade history lesson for her class. March 8, 2019. (Ellen Moynihan / New York Daily News)

A white teacher at a Westchester County school held a mock slave auction with her black students as part of a fifth-grade history lesson for her class — plunging the private institution into chaos, a parent and sources with knowledge of the situation told the Daily News Friday.

Administrators at the Chapel School in Bronxville are investigating the allegation that the teacher allowed her white students to bid on black students who pretended to be slaves during a fake auction Tuesday.

Advertisement

The matter is currently being investigated by school officials and is also being probed by state Attorney General Letitia James.

Vernex Harding, of Bronxville, said her son, who is black, was one of the students singled out by teacher Rebecca Antinozzi for the controversial history lesson.

Harding said her family is rattled by the incident and she’s spoken to the school’s leadership.

“I’m shocked and infuriated that this happened to my son,” said Harding, who is an educational administrator at another school. “I’m very shaken.”

Harding said her son told her Tuesday night that Antinozzi brought three of her black students out of the classroom and into the school hallway where she pretended to place them in shackles.

Harding said Antinozzi then brought the three black students back into class where she conducted a mock slave auction of the students, with the white kids in class posing as wealthy slave owners and the teacher acting as auctioneer.

“The portrayal of the history lesson that has been reported is inaccurate, out of context, contains false facts and ignores the overwhelming support of Ms. Antinozzi from dozens of parents at the school,” Kimerling said. “To the extent anyone took offense to a small portion of the overall lesson that day, it certainly was never intended.”

Chapel School principal Michael Schultz said school officials are investigating the matter.

“We’re in midst of an investigation and we are unable to give any other comment at this time,” Shultz said.

Harding said black students are a small minority at Chapel and that the school has encountered race problems in the past, including reports that black students are disciplined unfairly there.

Other parents of Chapel School students said they were distressed to hear of the incident.

Teacher Patricia Cummings was involved in a controversy last year. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)

“Everyone’s really sad about it,” said one parent who asked to remain anonymous, citing a request from school officials to refrain from speaking with the media. “I don’t know why she thought that would be acceptable.”

Cummings caused a furor after several students and one staffer claimed that she singled out black students and told them to lie on the floor and then pressed on their backs for a lesson on U.S. slavery.

A city Education Department investigation found that Cummings used poor judgment in the lesson but did not substantiate allegations by one student that she pushed her knee into students’ backs. Cummings was fired as a result of the investigation and her overall performance as an educator in October.